An expeditionary medical ship used by the Navy will be named for the city of Portsmouth.
Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro named the Bethesda-class ship to honor the city’s long legacy of hosting the Navy staff of Naval Medical Center Portsmouth. According to the Navy, the facility hosts 5,000 medical professionals that provide health care to active-duty members, veterans and their families in the Hampton Roads area. It is the Navy’s first and oldest continuously operating hospital, established in 1830.
“USNS Portsmouth, a symbol of our Navy’s progress, also carries the weight of our history,” said Rear Adm. Darin Via, the U.S. Navy Surgeon General and chief of the U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. Via spent the majority of his professional military and medical life at the medical center…